The window through which Salam Amira, 16, filmed the moment when an Israeli soldier shot from close range a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee has a large hole at its centre with cracks running in every direction.

“Since my video was shown, the soldiers shoot at our house all the time,” she said. The shattered and cracked windows at the front of the building confirm her story. “When we leave the windows open, they fire tear gas inside too.”

Her home looks out over the Israeli road block guarding the only entrance to the village of Nilin, located just inside the West Bank midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was here that a bound Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, was shot in the foot in July with a rubber bullet under orders from an Israeli regiment commander.

The treatment of the family stands in stark contrast to the
leniency shown to the soldier and his commander involved in that
incident.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, has accused
the Israeli army of seeking “revenge” for the girl’s role in exposing
the actions of its armed forces in the West Bank.

It may also be
hoping to dissuade other families from airing similar evidence of army
brutality, particularly since B’Tselem began distributing dozens of
video cameras to Palestinians across the West Bank.

Scenes captured on film of hooded settlers attacking Palestinian farmers near Hebron came as a shock to many early this summer.

The
village of Nilin has been the focus of the Israeli army’s actions since
May, when its 4,700 inhabitants began a campaign of mainly non-violent
demonstrations to halt the building of Israel’s separation wall across
their land.

After the wall is completed, the village will be cut
off from 40 per cent of its remaining farmland, effectively annexing it
to half a dozen large Jewish settlements that encircle Nilin. The
settlements are all illegal under international law.

Several
times a week the villagers, joined by small numbers of Israeli and
international supporters, congregate in olive fields where bulldozers
are tearing up the land to make way for the wall.

The people of
Nilin have tried various non-violent forms of protest, including
praying in the path of the heavy machinery, using mirrors to reflect
sunlight at the construction workers, banging pots and pans, and
placing rocks in the way of the bulldozers during the night.

The
army has responded with tear gas and stun grenades, as well as on
occasion, with rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition. Last
month it was reported that Israel was also experimenting with a new
crowd dispersal method called “skunk”, which involves firing a
foul-smelling liquid at demonstrators.

In the past few weeks,
two youngsters have been shot dead by the army, including one, Ahmed
Moussa, who was 10. The army claimed he was throwing stones. An autopsy
showed he was hit in the head by a bullet from an M-16 rifle.

This
week a soldier fired from close range three rubber bullets at Awad
Surur, a mentally disabled man, as he tried to prevent his brother from
being arrested. Two bullets penetrated his skull, according to
B’Tselem, which denounced the army as increasingly “trigger-happy” and
“reckless”.

Salam’s family, like many other villagers, bear the
injuries from attendance at protests. Most of her five brothers have
been hit by rubber bullets, as has her father, Jamal Amira, 53. The
army has sealed the village off on several occasions and, according to
villagers, beaten and terrorised inhabitants.

Mr Amira is among
at least 100 farmers whose livelihoods will be devastated by the wall.
He will lose all 14 hectares of his land, fields on which his ancestors
have made their living by growing olives, cucumbers, aubergine and
tomatoes.

But Salam’s five-minute film of the roadblock
incident, taken during a four-day curfew imposed on the village, has
only intensified the family’s troubles.

Three days after the
video was aired, the army arrested her father during a peaceful
protest. He was the only one seized after the army claimed the
demonstrators had entered a closed military zone. Mr Amira was also
charged with assaulting a soldier.

He was held for three and a
half weeks before an Israeli military judge rejected the army’s demand
that he be remanded for a further three months until his trial.

In
an almost unprecedented rebuke to the prosecution, the judge questioned
the army’s case, saying he could see no evidence of an assault. He also
asked why Salam’s father was singled out from all of those protesting.

Mr
Amira’s lawyer, Gabi Laski, said the decision confirmed “our
preliminary claim that the arrest was out of vengeance and punishment
for the video filmed by the girl”.

Nonetheless, Mr Amira still
faces a military trial. A report last year by Yesh Din, a human rights
group, found that in only 0.25 per cent of cases heard by military
tribunals was the defendant found innocent. Even if acquitted, Mr Amira
is expected to face legal costs amounting to nearly US$10,000
(Dh36,700), a sum the family says it cannot pay.

In contrast,
the two soldiers responsible for the shooting of the detainee at the
roadblock have been reprimanded with the minor charge of “unbecoming
conduct”. Neither will stand criminal trial. B’Tselem has called the
decision “shameful”.

According to the legal group the
Association of Civil Rights in Israel, the punishment under Israeli law
for aggravated abuse of a detainee is seven years imprisonment. ACRI’s
lawyers have submitted a petition arguing the lenient charge “transmits
to officers and other soldiers an extremely grave message of contempt
for human life”.

Lt Col Omri Borberg, the commander who gave the
order to shoot Abu Rahma, resigned his post but was immediately moved
sideways to a senior post in a different unit. In a show of support,
Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the army, said Lt Col Borberg may be
reinstated to a command position.

Meanwhile, the villagers said
the army’s behaviour would not dissuade them from protesting or cause
them to renounce their commitment to non-violence.

Salah Hawaja,
a protest organiser, said: “When we started our demonstrations, maybe
50 soldiers showed up. Now there are hundreds stationed permanently
around us. Israel is treating us like a major war zone, even though we
are using non-violence.

“The people of Nilin have accepted that
the best strategy to stop Israel’s plans to steal our land and leave us
inside a ghetto is non-violence,” said Mr Hawaja.

“We need to
show the world who is the occupier and who the occupied. Israel
understands how threatening this is, which is why it is using so much
force against us.”

A fund has been established to help the Amira family. Donations can be
sent to: Amira Legal Defense Fund, PO Box 1335, Kfar Saba, Israel
44113, made out to “Matte Hacoalitsia”. Alternatively, you can donate
through PayPal: http://tinyurl.com/6fekjc

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.
His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran
and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing
Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His
website is www.jkcook.net.